This set was a trick, and a treat, because it looked like I had used the same card twice in fairly quick time, but instead this was the Faulkner version, not the Stephen Mitchell version that we used in "Back to the Future" week to represent a McFly. So now we can cross reference them.
This clue referred to Dartmoor, home of the river Dart, which was where the granite used to make Nelson`s column came from. In fact we know the actual place that granite was taken from, and that was Royal Oak Quarry, later renamed to Foggintor Quarry, near Tavistock. It was in use during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and was a very thriving place, a real community, with a railway to move the granite, a chapel, plus a blacksmith and stables for the pit ponies. amd a pretty constant occupation of just under two hundred people.
Dartmoor granite was used all over London, including for the National Gallery which is at one side of Trafalgar Square.
Now this first appeared in our earliest ever reference book, RB.1, which was devoted to the issues of W. & F. Faulkner. And it describes this set as :
1929. 25. ANGLING (titled series). Size "A" (Standard). Numbered 1-25. Fronts, printed by four colour letterpress, half-tone screen blocks. Illustrations of "fly" inset. Backs printed in grey-black, with descriptions, and numbered. Printed by Mardon, Son & Hall. Also issued by Mitchell.
These cards are attractive despite the subject. Each card is also topographical, because the picture is of a named region and body of water and then the bait is inset as a small picture. Now the immediate thing that I notice is that it says here "Illustrations of "fly" inset", but a look at the entire set shows that the insets are not all of artificial flies. In fact only eight, to my reckoning, are. And that tells us that when this set was inspected to add to the reference book it was not a set at all, but instead just a few odds, all of which, quite coincidentally, showed flies.
Moving along, the World Tobacco Issues Indexes read : "ANGLING. Sm. Nd. (25). See RB.21/449.B" . However this does close with a sudden spot of excitement, for RB.21 is, of course, the British American Tobacco Booklet, and the text in here, filed under "Section XVI - Other English Language Issues" says :
449. ANGLING. Small cards, size 68 x 36 m/m. Front in colour. Back in grey, with descriptive text. Numbered series of 25.
A. Anonymous issue, with letterpress on back.
B. Faulkner Home Issue
C. Mitchell Home Issue
So if anyone has this anonymous issue I would be interested to hear from you, with respect to whether the back is the same framework, and what it says in the box where the other two issuers insert their name.